PensFanInDC wrote:Also...F this fascination with IPAs. I like a good IPA but my God does every other beer at the store have to be one? Its like hot sauce. I like spicy but I want to taste the peppers, not burn myself. Like hops. I want the bitterness but I also want to taste the beer.

I think IPAs have made a change in the last five years or so. There are definitely more on the market, but most don't seem to over the top bitter hop types.

18 of the most overrated beers, according to some random guy on deadspin

Miller High Life: Way too many otherwise tasteful people regard this as the cream of the **** crop. It's not. High Life is markedly inferior to Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz.

Blue Moon: Most mildly engaged beer-drinkers realize that ShockTop is Anheuser-Busch's crass attempt to jack craft beer's momentum, but for some reason Coors's Blue Moon hustle flies under the radar. Of course a beer isn't bad or overrated just because it's brewed by an international conglomerate, but Blue Moon is one of the worst wheat beers around and is therefore wholly undeserving of its market share. It's not that hard to find Hoegaarden, Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen, or Allagash White these days. There's no excuse to drink Blue Moon.

Heineken: One of my favorite lies is that I don't judge people by what they drink, but the truth is I have a hard time respecting anyone I see holding this skunky pinkie ring of a beer.

Yuengling.

Corona: Always skunked, maybe even intentionally. It's not a great sign when your beer is customarily served with a lime to hide the flavor. If you like lime in your beer, that's cool (and weird), but in that case, you're better off just drinking the cheapest thing you can find.

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale: This was one of the most disappointing things I've tried in the past several years. You can get all sorts of barrel-aged beers these days—KelSo recently put out a really nice Jameson-barrel IPA, for instance—so there's no reason to settle for this erstwhile novelty. It tastes like generic strong ale overdosed with vanilla.

Heady Topper and all the other wait-in-line double IPAs: Double IPAs are so expensive to make (and therefore to buy) that there aren't too many bad ones on the market. I love Heady Topper, and I get excited every time one of my beer-obsessive friends tosses one my way, but I can't justify waiting around all morning outside a middle-of-nowhere brewery for the privilege of buying something that's only marginally better than Dogfish Head 90 Minute, which you can buy on friggin' Amtrak.

Stella Artois: This is clearly just Belgium **** with us. Stella Artois has to be the very worst beer they make.

Bass Ale: This only still exists because stupid black and tans do.

Magic Hat #9: Vermont's first nationally prominent brewery seems to be more interested in marketing than brewing these days, and it's high time for their apricot flagship to go away. I'll **** with fruit beer—I love 21st Amendment's Hell or High Watermelon, and even have a soft spot for the unremarkable Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat—but #9's popularity far outstrips its quality.

Your local brewery's flagship: In most cases, the beer that put a brewery on the map way back when—even if way back when was two years ago—has since been surpassed in-house. They may need to keep the sales workhorse around to keep the ship afloat, but the brewers themselves know that they've gotten better at their craft since creating that first hit recipe. (Samuel Adams Boston Lager and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are notable exceptions to this rule, which applies most heavily to smaller operations.)

North Coast Old Rasputin: Imperial stouts from high-end breweries are similar to double IPAs in that they're almost all very good. And Old Rasputin, from the redoubtable producer of America's finest pilsner, is awesome. But it's not as transcendent as its reputation suggests.

Anchor Steam: Hey man, I'm not any happier about this than you are. I like Anchor Porter and California Lager, but the Steam isn't very good. It's too malty and musty, and it bores my poor tongue to death.

Rolling Rock: Rolling Rock, which sucks real bad, has a strange little mystique around it for some reason. Can anyone explain why a large segment of the Pennsylvanian diaspora considers this to be the ultimate good-time juice?

Red Stripe: This is just a Jamaican marketing hustle. I'm told Harvard students fall for it in alarming numbers. Suckers. Red Stripe isn't even good for Caribbean beer. You want to get all islandic, drink yourself some Prestige (Haitian) or Presidente (Dominican).

Moosehead: Canadian Red Stripe.

Shiner Bock: Shiner is reputed to make some very good beers, but I've only had the much-heralded Bock, which is musty and dirty. Sure, **** it: Texan Red Stripe.

OK, so that settles that. Time to ban me from Pennsylvania, fight about Bell's amongst yourselves, and point out anything I've missed.

shmenguin wrote:he qualifies the blue moon and magic hat inclusions by pointing out how terrible they are. and he's correct.

Yes he is. Magic Hat is far more interested in marketing now than making good beer. They used to make very good beer and #9 was a novelty. Then #9 became marketable on a national scale and they went away from making solid beer.

The one that irks me is Heady Topper. It's a sensational beer. While you may have to wait at times to get it, you can also just go into one of the places the distribute and get it fairly easily, at a coat that isn't that excessive.

I am glad to see Stella Artois on this list. My opinion of this beer is that it's the most average beer on the planet. There isn't a single thing about it that's remarkable. But it's presented and sold as a premium beer, which it just isn't.

Perfect form with a smooth, malty opening line followed by a crisp, citrusy hop-filled second stanza. The final piece of its poetic existence is a dash of cool cucumber combined with the slightest of hibiscus tangs.

Froggy wrote:I am glad to see Stella Artois on this list. My opinion of this beer is that it's the most average beer on the planet. There isn't a single thing about it that's remarkable. But it's presented and sold as a premium beer, which it just isn't.

I'll second that. The beer is just very average, it'll do in a pinch but if it goes away tomorrow I wouldn't miss it